(The Lion) — Over the past four years, America’s public schools have poured $20 million in federal funding into diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, new research finds.

Defending Education (DE) released a report revealing how tax dollars intended to improve academics have instead gone to programs frequently discriminating by sex and race.

The report analyzed 61 public school districts from across 18 states and found nearly $20 million in federal dollars spent on such programs.

The organization tracked funding from four sources:

• Title I, which gives supplementary funds to districts with high percentages of low-income students
• Title II, which seeks to improve teacher and principal quality to increase student achievement
• Title IV, which has the broad goal of educational enrichment and includes school safety, counseling or mental health services, and professional development
• IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), which supports special education students

Tax dollars intended for these purposes instead went to a variety of woke programs, such as “equitable” grading, restorative justice, social emotional learning, and some discriminating on the basis of sex and race.

For example, Indianapolis Public schools used $680,000 of its Title II funding to hire a consultant from The Racial Equity Institute.

In Ohio, Lorain City Schools spent over $13,000 of Title IV dollars on the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland. Additionally, California’s Temecula Valley Unified School District spent $19,000 on LGBT Professional Development.

Over three years, Elk Grove USD spent $4.4 million of Title I funding on programming exclusively for males of color.

Meanwhile, the Jefferson Union High School District paid nearly $300,000 in Title I funding for “Grading for Equity” programming.

In practice, equitable grading lowers grading standards. While this artificially boosts the grades of underperforming students, it can harm the whole school’s academic rigor.

High grading standards helps students of all ethnicities and income levels, while lax grading “provides students and parents with a false sense of security and accomplishment,” the Washington Post concluded in a 2020 article.

As a result, high school graduates can be less prepared for rigorous academics of higher education.

Finally, Hayward USD spent over $200,000 on “Woke Kindergarten,” according to DE research.

The Woke Kindergarten website provides “woke read alouds” telling children it is important “for all of us to affirm people’s identities.”

Another section of the website promotes a “woke word of the day,” exposing students to “liberatory vocabulary” such as “anti-racist,” “ceasefire” and “abolish.”

“Time and again, district spending illustrates how lucrative far-Left programming is for education activists,” concluded DE’s investigative reporter Kendall Tietz.

“Instead of prioritizing reading, writing and arithmetic, school districts across the country have spent nearly $20 million in federal funds on organizations and consultants promoting progressive ideology in K-12 education.”